Fake Team Awards Not Really Awarded

(News first: apparently yet another NHL debut tonight: Ryan Caldwell. To fill it out: Mass. native Peter Tormey up from Trenton. Heard Papineau might not play, too.)

So, in a very scientific nine-person survey…

In a scattered ballot, you guys voted Steve Regier the Fan Favorite. “Reg”* no doubt clinched this thing with the whole drop-the-puck-from-between-yer-teeth-and-try-n-score bit back in the day. Wade Dubielewicz finished second.

More decisive was the vote for the Seventh Player, the one who exceeded expectations. The overwhelming pick — unanimous until the final two votes, in fact — was the guy I had thought of first as well, Matt Koalska. He had a fine, much-improved second season, and I don’t think it’s coincidence that, when you think of the two second/third, non-superstar-type lines that emerged this season, he was the pivot on both (Tunik-Koalska-Regier early, Marjamaki-Koalska-Masse through the middle).

Already clinched — a while ago, probably, in fact — is the Three Stars Award, which almost any way you slice it is a runaway for Wade Dubielewicz. There’s a natural goalie-bias to these things — haven’t I ranted about it at one point, while doing it myself: GW goalie, GL goalie, GWG? — but still, Dubielewicz was picked 17 times in his 45 games (second: Collins, 12), was first star eight times (second: Sean Bergenheim, five), and on a 5-3-1 points system, he earned 57 points, not quite double his runner-up (Collins, 32). On a pro-rated basis, the only one who comes close is Cody Rudkowsky, who took three first-stars and a third-star in nine BST games. (Actually, Mike Omicioli, with his one first-star in four games, and Frederic Cloutier and Garth Snow also averaged better than one 5-3-1 point per game. Snow’s, obviously, was one third-star in his only game.)

Meanwhile, after setting up tonight’s story’s file, I changed up my box-score template for the playoffs. My default on the template during the regular season is Hartford; 10-time opponent, without the multiword problems brought up by changing “Wilkes-Barre/Scranton” repeatedly. Since there’s only one opponent until the last week of April, I changed those “Hartford”s to WBS’s. And best of all, I took out one paragraph from both the home and road templates. “Shootout — “? Not anymore. It’s that time of year.

OK, let’s get this thing done in running time tonight, eh?

*-It’s a great nickname that plays off the way you’d think a guy’s name would be pronounced, but isn’t…

Michael Fornabaio